While there are listeners who love
Stravinsky's Les Noces, they are far fewer in number than those who love Firebird or Petrushka or Le Sacre. One can readily sympathize since most performances of Les Noces have all the subtle charm of an amputation without anesthetic. There are fewer listeners yet who love
Stravinsky's Cantata and fewer still who love his Mass. And again one can readily sympathize since most performances of the Cantata are interminable and most performances of the Mass are unendurable. But not so in these performances by
Karel Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic which, almost alone among recorded performances of these works, has the nearly unprecedented advantage of sounding musical. Imagine: the angular melodies, harsh sonorities, and asymmetrical rhythms of Les Noces; the drooping melodies, soggy sonorities, and endless central song of the Cantata; and the gnarly counterpoint and gnomic harmonies of the Mass all sounding like music instead of the dry manipulations of a master cerebrater. And yet in the sympathetic hands of master conductor
Karel Ancerl, it is so.
Ancerl's singers actually sing, his duo pianists play like their pianos aren't merely percussion instruments, his percussionists play like their batteries aren't merely assault weapons, and the Czech Philharmonic plays like
Stravinsky's music is lyrical and not a deliberate affront to good taste. While this disc is not for everyone, anyone who actually does love
Stravinsky's music after Le Sacra will love this disc. The stereo sound of Supraphon's digital remastering is superb: clear, warm, and richly detailed.